Today has been an emotional rollercoaster and poor Joey isn't feeling well. We got up at 5am and did some of our arm workout, but today just took its toll. Managed to eat well, then ate 3 little Fig Newtons and lost my shit over the calories. I have since deleted MyFitnessPal from my phone. I can't stand the constant counting and measuring and weighing. We are doing so much better than ever about making smarter decisions, eating smaller portions, less sugar, more fruits and veggies, no candies and chips and pizza and crap ALL THE TIME. We are getting stronger every day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better and we can get back to the gym. But tonight is about rest, and dreaming of Dairy Queen's Cotton Candy Blizzard. I'm not going to stress over it. This is a journey we are on, it doesn't have to be completed immediately. And sometimes you need a few days to get yourself right. .
.
#journeytohealth#onestepatatime#gettingstronger#healthiernotskinnier#gottagetmymindright#booktherapy#bookworm

It’s @mentalhealthfoundation’s Mental Health Awareness Week. It has been all week. I haven’t made specific posts till now because in my world, in my life, on my page here, and other social media, every week is MHAW.
.
This is long. I know it’s long. I needed to write it and wanted to share.
.
I grew up aware of mental health - or more specifically mental unhealth.
I grew up knowing mental health problems were something it was ok to experience, and they were ok to talk about, and ok to take medication for.
From a young age I understood my mum took antidepressants to keep her on an even keel.
I’d always known Mum had what she designates in herself as an addictive personality, and I remember always being told not to drink on my own.
Although I never knew Mum’s parents, both having died before I was born (heart attacks), from an age that I could understand, I knew my maternal grandmother experienced mental illness and was hospitalised—sectioned—for quite a long time (years), and as a teenager I understood the environment my mum grew up in was abusive. I understood her mum’s illness caused her to have paranoid and religious delusions and beliefs, prompting certain behaviours. As I got older, I learned that she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
I understood for a long time that my dad had a ‘nervous breakdown’ when he was younger, though I didn’t necessarily understand what that meant.
I knew a school friend’s parent, and one of my teachers had died by suicide. I was told what that meant. I was at most 6-7 then, because I remember when it was, at first school. .
My mum was always a person people could talk to and confide in. From friends she’d had and talked about at times, to children she’d taught, to my own friends, Mum listened and learned. She knows people and children very well.
Friends would come to my house when we were teenagers, and it was the house where we’d eat dinner together and then Dad would go off and my friends were welcome to sit at the table and smoke while my mum did the same, and they talked and she listened. Whatever sorts of problems they might have had, she listened, she didn’t—and (still) wouldn’t—judge.
.
(Cont’d below... ⬇️)